Recognizing and alleviating pain are common challenges in laboratory animal medicine and are mandated by the Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy on the Use of Laboratory Animals. However, available data on effective post-surgical analgesia for rodents has been collected primarily by studying rats; relatively few studies specifically assess analgesic efficacy for clinical use in mice. The development of clinical approaches for veterinary medical management of mice has lagged behind the explosive expansion in the availability and scientific use of genetically modified strains of mice, particularly with respect to their increasing importance in studies requiring surgical manipulation. The need to identify efficacious analgesic regimens for mice will become even more imperative should the United States Department of Agriculture eventually amend its definition of "animal" to include the genus Mus. This application proposes to evaluate the efficacy of several oral analgesic regimens for treatment of acute, surgical, and inflammatory pain in mice. Oral administration of analgesic medications via the drinking water is advantageous in a research setting because it permits large numbers of animals to be treated efficiently and without additional manipulation. However, important considerations are to assure both that the therapeutic regimen has efficacy against the pain the animals are experiencing and that the animals voluntarily consume enough medication to achieve effective doses. Much of the available literature does not address these issues. Preliminary work indicates that ibuprofen administered in the drinking water promotes behavioral recuperation in mice that have undergone abdominal surgery. This application proposes to extend that work by identifying additional or superior analgesic regimens for acute, surgical or inflammatory pain in mice. The data should reveal new and practical strategies for relief of post-procedural pain in mice.